quote:

Maybe it's a chicken and egg thing

Bingo- not either/or, but both.

quote:

Originally posted by jhelm:
As a person somewhat dedicated to exercise I have to disagree a bit about the lack of excercise leading to obesity. Maybe it's a chicken and egg thing. The fatter we get the less likely we are to exercise. But I believe it's mainly a diet thing. For example you swim hard for half an hour and burn 250 calories then you eat two nice tasty cookies and get them all back. Like someone said you sit around on the couch and next you know there is a bag of chips in your hand.

As a dedicated couch potato I totally agree with this! When I am overweight - well more than usual! - exercise is the last thing I want to do! It hurts, you get out of puff more and who thinks a bright red face is becoming? I actually did more damage to myself starting an exercise class I was unfit for last year than just doing what I always do when I should lose weight and walk and eat less crap. Ended up more than back to square one. But am walking again now and it is coming off.

Actually the so-called Mediterranean Diet was basically the diet of the poor, and was abandoned by Italian families as soon as they could afford it, ie the Sixties/Seventies. Ironically, now that everyone celebrates the MD, it has become quite expensive to follow.

It's not just that exercise does help burn the calories but the way it changes your attitude.

I got back from the UK by car on Tuesday and went to that evening's football training - a light session luckily - and last night's (including fartlek - urgh). I felt really sluggish after a good time in the UK but I pushed myself as I want to be signed on and play (as substitute off the bench will be fine at my age!). I need to keep the weight off but I need the external stimulus to keep fit and am prepared (and able) to make that commitment. Sport in Italy does seem pretty well organised, but that in itself perhaps puts off the less committed.

I'd agree with may of the other comments about the changing diet, prevalence of overweight children and the historical aspect. My memories of a childhood in Rome associate nonnas with being dressed in black and generously proportioned.:-)

I think the problem is caused by a combination of lack of exercise and eating too much. For most people, if you eat like a pig and sit in front of the tv all day, of course you will pile the weight on. If however, you eat a lot but are active, you will not put on the weight as much as an inactive person. When you reach your thirties onwards, your body changes and the weight is harder to shift. Women that have children also may find it hard to lose the weight after childbirth so someone older having a bit of weight on them is not so unusual. What is unnatural is children being fat. They have no reason to be fat. They don't have the reasons we would have; oh I've just had a baby, oh my fat backside is sitting in an office all day and has expanded, oh I work 14 hours a day and don't have time to exercise, I work shifts and eat at strange times so put the weight on etc etc.... Children don't have these responsibilities. They should be running around a playground playing games, going out after dinner and playing with friends like us oldies used to do. Instead many children are sitting down to a dinner with portions that would choke a horse then going off to their bedrooms to play on a playstation, computer or whatever. At the end of the day, it is the fault of the parents who virtually force feed their kids from an early age encouraging huge appetites then allowing them to go off and play on the computer instead of getting them involved in some sort of exercise to work it off. When I was young, you couldn't get me indoors. I was out playing as soon as dinner was over and had to be dragged in for bed. I look after OH's grandson's occasionally and after dinner I will say, why don't you go outside and play football, out on the bike etc but they don't want to because they want to play the playstation, watch a dvd, can't be bothered. I can see the weight slowly creeping on one of them since he got his computer and plays less outside and he's not a huge eater, doesn't eat a lot of sweets, fizzy drinks, he's just getting a bit flabby for a 10 year old. In the summer though after a month in Capri swimming, walking, no computer, the weight fell off him.

The real problem is that if you have a fat 5 year old they will most probably grow into a fat adult. I am by no means a fattist person, each to their own but I really object to a child being allowed to become fat, there is no excuse. OH's ex who I work with has an entire family of morbidly obese people. Her sister is huge to the point that she cannot work, has sores on her body, diabetes, a heart complaint and has been told if she doesn't lose weight she will die very soon and she is only 48. Her 3 children are also morbidly obese and have been that way since they were young, they now have young children who are also overweight and they are all under 5 years old. Before anyone says it could be their glands, underactive thyroid, big boned etc, no that is not the case, they eat like pigs, basta.

These stories are reinforcing my own ideas about my kids. This year we've banned tv during the school year and they can only watch it a limited amount on the weekends. I won't let them have a playstation. They do have a computer and play games on it, but some are educational and some are on line games only in English.

That's the best way to go about it. Everything in moderation rather than a total ban is ideal. They'll thank you for it when they're older, maybe not now when you're the big bad dad who banned tv and playstation!

Getting onto something a bit different from children's weight, I have noticed that some parents use the tv's and computer games as a form of "babysitting" ie, sit the child down in front of the tv, pc etc and that occupies them while the parent goes off and cleans, talks on the phone. One of OH's daughters has a 10 year old son who has Aspergers. He becomes obsessive about things on a weekly basis. Since she is a single parent, from an early age she has sat him down in front of a dvd and left him whilst she cleaned the house, phoned her friends etc. He now has this routine that he goes into his room and watches tv for hours, plays on his playstation and spends hours alone because he cannot interact properly with other children. It's a real shame that he has been brought up this way but the mother does not see a problem with it.

quote:

Originally posted by Ragazza scozzese:
One of OH's daughters has a 10 year old son who has Aspergers. He becomes obsessive about things on a weekly basis. Since she is a single parent, from an early age she has sat him down in front of a dvd and left him whilst she cleaned the house, phoned her friends etc. He now has this routine that he goes into his room and watches tv for hours, plays on his playstation and spends hours alone because he cannot interact properly with other children. It's a real shame that he has been brought up this way but the mother does not see a problem with it.

Not to go too far off topic but my cousin has Aspergers and not being able to intereact 'normally' with others is one of the main symptoms.

That's right Ramona. It is one of many symptoms of Aspergers. What I was meaning was that since he was around 1 year old she has been sitting him in front of the tv for hours on end so for a person with interaction problems, obsessive routines, inability to distinguish between reality and fiction (ie horror movies which he has an obsession with; he once told his 5 year old cousin that he would stab him to death after watching a certain scene from a film over and over and over again) you have to be extra careful. I could go on and on about the worries I have about him but I've hijacked this thread too much already!

RS - maybe you should start a new thread in the blogging bit, as this is interesting. More kids are being diagnosed autistic. Everything BUT TV has been blamed so far....

I may just do that Alyson. I'm supposed to be painting the bedroom today and so far I have got as far as bringing the paint (unopened) upstairs and no more! I've got Italian tv set up here now and I'm hooked on all the rubbish like Forum so it's seriously holding me up from getting some work done and now I'm thinking of starting a new thread I'll get nothing done!

I don't think this board is tooo strict with wandering off topic, but I agree with RS that it's the kids that suffer. I'm quite aware that being single with no kids helps me have the time to do what I do and I sympathise with those working long hours who then just want to collapse in front of the TV.

I think perhaps autism/aspergers has always been there to a similar level, but if you were forced out of the house to play in the past you wouldn't get the negative reinforcement described above. This ties in with my point above formal sport. There doesn't seem to be the informal physical play anymore - it's all or nothing. My love of football [soccer] was due to the nearest 2 English kids of my age when we moved to Rome, and the kickabouts in the park I grew to love. These days I probably wouldn't be allowed out and have to join a formal team where my basic lack of ability would have soon put me off going!

I know it's my bugbear but TRAFFIC is what makes the crucial difference imo. My son would love to play outside more but, whereas my husband used to play out in the street, there is practically nowhere in Bologna now where it would be safe to play in the street. Of course we can take him to the park but, even disregarding the graffitti and drug dealers , there sometimes isn't time for me to accompany him there and back (and of course stay with him there!)

Or maybe just a lack of creativity on the parents' part. Our back balcony faces a huge courtyard of all the surrounding palazzi and on the ground level there is one courtyard where kids in that building play in good weather (which has been pretty regular for Torino!). They make tons of noise, but I figure: rather they are down there burning it all off for an hour or two than sitting like puddings because their parents can't be bothered/find the time to schlep them somewhere else to get some exercise.

We have the great good luck to have a park nearby with loads of wall-climbing/seesaws/you-name-it, and unless it's bucketing rain the place is invariably packed with kids and their parents.

Bottom line: you don't need to fork over the equivalent of a down payment on a Gulfstream to make sure your kids get a bit of calorie-burning effort in the course of the day. Try looking around, often the local Comune offers stuff (my daughter learned to swim one summer thanks to a local pool and Comune initiative).

Italian mothers have always maintained that their children were special, but they got them out and Italian kids were always skinny and sleek, notwithstanding endless efforts of mamma to feed them like baby birds.

I totally agree with you C in Bo. When you live in the city it is difficult for children to get out to play. Things have obviously changed over the years when children were allowed out to play until dark with no obvious dangers. Now you have the worry of child molesters, drug pushers, joy riders, the list goes on. It's also hard when the parents work full time and come home from work too tired to do anything but relax. Even so, schools should be providing a form of exercise every day, is this case in Italy? At my school, we had PE 3 times per week, played netball and hockey outwith the PE lessons and at break times ran around the playground like maniacs!

On the subject of fitness, OH's daughter (not the one with the son with Aspergers) was going through a sticky patch in her marriage. Husband had put weight on, they both smoked and barely went near each other (if you know what I mean). They both decided to stop smoking and the husband started jogging, walking and cycling and has lost a load of weight. Instead of taking the car down to Tesco he goes on his bike and takes the 2 boys on their bikes too. It's quite a long way and some of it uphill but they seem to be loving it. Her 7 year old said to her the other day when he seen his dad getting the bike out "oh no mum, are we going to have to go to Tescos again on the bike" he prefers to take the car. Anyway, things are going really well for them on their fitness drive and they can't keep their hands off each other like they were at the beginning, new lease of life!

I think as far as sports are concerned the government should be making a commitment to providing better sports facilities for schoolchildren which are accessible to all, not just people with money. If they aren't getting the exercise at home at least they would be active at schooltime or after school clubs etc. When we are in Capri, the boys always want to play football but there is nowhere for them to play so they sit around instead. There is a football pitch but it is not for the public. There is the beach but they are not allowed to play football there. They end up kicking the ball against the wall of the house and driving us nuts!

quote:

Or maybe just a lack of creativity on the parents' part.

I totally agree, my wife's sister lives on the 7th floor in an apartment in Milan. The door to their building is 2m from a busy street, no yard no play area, yet her kids are as fit as they can be.

BH

If you live in Rome, chances are there are at least 2 parks within walking distance of where you live. We don't have a TV either, and in good weather I took my kids to the park almost every day, by foot, between the walks to and from, the play in the park itself, my kids got lots of excercise.

I think I would be if I lived on the 7th floor and didn't use a lift!